


Blessed Are The Dead

by sadonna



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, do with that what you will, dream is a ghost, only George can see him, will continue to tag as I go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28604727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadonna/pseuds/sadonna
Summary: He goes to the front door and makes for the knob, but his hand passes clean through. Without thinking, he tries again. And again, his grip is nothing to it. His eyes well up with frustration, with confusion, exhaustion. He can touch the doorknob. It’s there. But as he tries to close his fingers around it, it seems to fizzle into nothingness, and his hand closes in on only itself. He tenses his worthless fist and channels all of his energy into it before slamming it into the door. It shakes, but doesn’t open. He tries one, two, three more times. It stays put and his knuckles don’t bruise.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nyukyu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nyukyu/gifts).



January 1, 2000

“Hurry up man, it’s fucking cold out here.”

“Shut it, I’m not that good at breaking and entering. If you’re so antsy, why don’t _you_ try picking the lock.”

Will’s comments never deter him. His breath curls out in ringlets between the falling snowflakes, swirling out into the air and dissipating before him. The street is cold and lonely behind him and Toby’s trying to press in close against his back, his eyes darting to and from the busted, useless streetlamps and the dark porch they’re all huddled under. Tommy ignores him, instead looking past Will’s shoulder to confirm the address: 241. This is the right house, that’s for sure. 

It looks no different than all the others around it. They’re all boarded up and abandoned, taken by the city fifteen or so years ago for some commercial work that never got done. Word on the street is that the neighbors of 241 were all happy to leave, and Tommy’s anxious to see if all their stories add up to anything. 

“Got it,” Will says a few seconds too early. He has to push the petrified door with his shoulder before it gives, and it takes a few swings before it opens enough for them to fit through. It rattles on its way in, the hinges stiff but not creaky—they’re not the first tourists to pop over. 

In an attempt to hide his excitement, Tommy takes a swig of his beer and waltzes casually through the entryway, his year-brandished sunglasses obscuring his view once Will closes the door. “It’s not that creepy,” he announces as if it’s fact, adjusting to the lowlight streaming in through the cracks in the boarded up windows. Although standing in the snow is uncomfortable, this kind of cold is different. The air is stale and old, settling around the empty house like a forlorn and distant tomb. 

“What’d you expect? Howling winds and cobwebs?” Will shoves past him, shaking flurries from his hair onto Tommy’s shoulder as he passes. He makes for the couch, probably the only piece of furniture left from the previous owners. _The_ owners. It’s a faded red color with springs and gnarled stuffing shooting out from the bottom and covering the surrounding floor. He’s both surprised and not surprised that no one’s decided to steal it.

Tommy shakes his head, looking around at the chipping popcorn ceiling. 

“Do you think that’s the couch?” Toby pipes up, sidling up to it, not daring to reach out and touch it. Will’s made himself comfortable enough against the cushions, bopping his head to something he’s got playing on his Walkman.

“I’d say so,” he mumbles, taking a long drink before looking up with a wry smile, “it’s the only one here, after all.” His voice is slow and low, daring them to think about it.

Toby takes a few anxious circles around the living room. He rubs his hands through his hair and calls out comedically loud, “I just want everyone in this house to know that it wasn’t my idea to come here.” 

“It was mine,” Tommy says, a grin dancing across his reddening cheeks. He’s alcohol happy and brave. He flops down next to Will, clinking his glass against his friend’s easily. Toby, suddenly more forward than he’d expected, slips down the hallway to scope out the bedrooms. Tommy had wanted to do some hunting, but having a seat made him feel suddenly rooted to the spot.

“Hey Will, did you bring your ouija board?” He asks, kicking him in the shin. Will doesn’t do much to move.

“Toby made me promise not to,” he says with a shrug, “and I didn’t want to fight him.”

Tommy’s face falls and he leans his head back. The whole point of coming to this house was— 

“But I did bring the planchette.”

His face brightens up again. 

“Yes!” He cheers, his laugh bringing Toby back to the living room. Will grabs it out of his backpack and forks it over. It’s cool against Tommy’s fingers. Heavy. Much heavier than it looks, as if weighed down by the thought of it. 

He flips it around in his grip, trying to get a feel for it. He closes one eye and looks through the center, scanning the room for anything out of place. Everything looks the same: old, dusty, and stagnant. If it was _him_ , where would he be?

“Toby, take this and check out the rest of the house. You best call me if you see anything.”

He tosses it over, and Toby barely catches it and nearly fumbles before placing it quickly and gingerly on the floor.

“I don’t want that thing!”

“Why not?” Tommy demands, no real bite to his tone. He just doesn’t want to get up; feels like he _needs_ to stay right where he is. Maybe he’s just drunk. 

Toby sits down as close to Will as he can get without touching anything, ready to ride out the night under his wing. “I didn’t even want to come here in the first place, so I’m not playing your games!” 

Tommy rolls his eyes. “Will, can you believe this?”

“Toby didn’t even want the board here, of course I believe it.”

“Unbelievable!” Tommy says in exasperation, hands flaying dramatically in front of him. “It’s like I’m the only brave one here!”

“Or the only stupid one,” Toby bites, making Will laugh. He preens under the attention and Tommy can’t take it. There was a purpose in being here.

When he stands up, he feels dizzy. Not a buzzed kind—a kind that’s got him on alert. He feels like his insides have all been shoved a few centimeters over, or like his thoughts are all a little too far out of reach. Maybe he should sit, maybe he shouldn’t take a look around…

“Well you were just down the hallway, genius. What’s over there?” He asks, picking up the planchette. Realistically nothing will happen, he’ll be disappointed, and he’ll go home. This’ll have just been an average, 3-person house party to ring in the new century. Some lame one in the middle of fucking Florida.

“Umm just two bedrooms and a bathroom. Nothing really except for a bed frame in one and a little window seat in the other,” Toby says, adding, “Will, won’t you turn on some better music?”

And Tommy tunes him out. A bed frame? Must be _his_ room. 

The sinking feeling in his gut falls away as he heads down the hall and into the first room on the left. The bed frame sits unmanned and unmattressed, the painted iron chipping and rusting up and down the intricate headboard. Tommy steps around it, taking in the unswept floors and the indents where the iron had scraped into the wood from years of someone moving it around. He looks up and can’t imagine having lived here. 

Aside from some old nails, the walls are bare and depressing. If he’d have slept on this bed, he figures, he’d have a decent look outside at night with the window off to the side. It’s all blocked now, but he can kind of picture what the night sky might look like on a clear night. He wonders what the sky had looked like on _the_ night. Were there clouds? Or were the stars out and screaming? 

It’s a strange thought, and as quickly as he thinks it it’s gone. He wanders back into the doorway and takes the room in as a whole. It’s small, kind of, but maybe it’s the same size as his back home. Maybe it just looks smaller because it’s empty. But shouldn’t it look bigger? 

As if without intent, he raises the planchette up and at his eye level, directing the center at the bed frame. He closes one eye and takes a look, and all his sinking feelings come rushing back from over whatever dam they’d been hiding behind. 

There, through the center of the little wooden figure, stands a person. And he’s looking directly at him.


	2. I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the point of view of Dream

Fall 1996

With a stretch good enough to last the day, he slowly starts waking up. He tries to avoid getting ready for the day by shoving his face into his pillow and muffling his responsibilities. There’s no sound coming from the TV, so he assumes his parents had come home and shut it off for him. He groans, waiting for his mom to come lecture him about staying up late. 

The longer he tries to fall back asleep, the more he thinks something is off. His pillow smells funny. Old, like he’s inhaling nothing but dust and weathered fabric. He sits up abruptly, his eyes shutting tighter as a reflex to his headache that’s bordering migraine territory. He brings a hand up to the bridge of his nose and squeezes to find some reprieve, although there’s not much to be had. He chances blinking a few times and almost draws back entirely at the cobweb-laden pillow he discovers where he’d been resting. Suddenly the pounding against his temples isn’t at the forefront of his mind. 

“What the fuck?” he murmurs, voice hoarse with misuse. He almost shouts for his mother, but instead stands up in surprise when he looks over to find the room empty. The TV and it’s stand are gone, the coffee table too, and every lamp and chair has left behind no trace of their existence. He spins around on his heel to find that everything behind him is gone, too. The dining table. The photos on the walls. The old bookcase with his dad’s favorite records, his mom’s display of vases, all the houseplants. Other than the silhouette from where he’d been sleeping, the couch is covered in a layer of dust so thick that the burgundy is near-unidentifiable. 

Without any semblance of sanity he bolts for his parent’s room, trying not to take in the bare walls or the strange feeling in his chest. Their door is open wide enough for him to launch through without thought, but what he finds has his fight or flight going haywire. 

The room is empty. Aside from the peeling wallpaper and the dust he’d disturbed from barging in, there is absolutely no reason for anyone to believe that this place has ever been lived in. A knot forms in his throat, and he reaches up to try to soothe it. 

“Mom? Dad?” he asks the stale air, half expecting an answer. The echo is so startling that he backtracks into the hallway and heads for his bedroom. The sound of his footsteps bounce off the walls like it burns them in their wake.

He finds his room bare except for his bed frame. His mattress is gone, his dresser, his chair, his desk. His closet door is wide open and void of contents. His floorboards are still uneven, but it’s no longer a squeaky nuisance; it’s a chilling groan that sounds like one more step might be the last they could handle. He swings back and maps out the rest of the house. His headache worsens as he passes through each open door. His parents are nowhere to be found. 

He tries to take a deep breath but the air feels like it’s passing right through him, like it’s all there but he’s no substance. He closes his eyes and cards his fingers through his hair. He holds on at the roots and pulls, trying to force himself back into normalcy. 

“It’s fine,” he grits through closed teeth, the words ice on his tongue. He’ll get help. His neighbors must’ve seen what happened. 

He goes to the front door and makes for the knob, but his hand passes clean through. Without thinking, he tries again. And again, his grip is nothing to it. His eyes well up with frustration, with confusion, exhaustion. He can touch the doorknob. It’s _there_. But as he tries to close his fingers around it, it seems to fizzle into nothingness, and his hand closes in on only itself. He tenses his worthless fist and channels all of his energy into it before slamming it into the door. It shakes, but doesn’t open. He tries one, two, three more times. It stays put and his knuckles don’t bruise. 

His vision clouds up but the tears don’t fall. He blinks them away and strides over to a window. The curtains are drawn shut and the patterns that adorn them are fading under a layer of lint. They sit lifeless, stiff, and unmoving against the glass. He reaches to shove them out of the way, but his hand falls past the fabric as if he’s nothing more than an extension of the air around him. His palm flattens against the hidden window, taking on the weight he feels his feet can’t hold. The fabric pooling around his wrist defies the laws of physics as he knows it, and as if acting on autopilot, he pulls back and retreats to the couch in tired defeat.

He slumps against the cushions and faces the ceiling, willing himself to wake up and get ready, to talk to his mother over breakfast and yell goodbye over his shoulder before going to meet Nick at the corner to walk to the arcade together. Nick… Nick. The name means something to him. He knows Nick and when he sees him he’ll ask him what the hell this dream might mean, and he knows that Nick will say it’s a bad omen and that he shouldn’t skip his classes for at least two weeks to recover, and that he should also pay for his lunch as reimbursement for his dream interpreting services. He’ll shove him in the shoulder with a laugh but listen to his advice anyway, and life will continue and he’ll forget what it feels like to not feel any air in his lungs. 

Spring 1997

When he wakes up again, the dream is still fresh on his mind. He’d only hoped to remember it in order to tell this Nick guy, his friend, but the strange feeling in his chest and head remain the same. He keeps his eyes closed as his mind comes to and focuses on the feeling of the couch beneath him. It’s as mildly uncomfortable as it has been since the day his dad picked it up from the store. He stays still and runs a hand over the stitching lightly, and then with a bit of force. He rubs his fingers together and bites his quivering lip when he feels dust balling up. 

For a while he stays unmoving, one arm slung over his eyes so he can’t accidentally catch a glimpse of anything. He knows nights don’t last this long, and his mom should’ve called him for breakfast hours ago. His dad should’ve already turned the news on and then off again when he finished eating. He should’ve taken a shower and done his hair and put on his lucky shoes, he should be bumming out with Nick, wasting money doing nothing. He should be having lunch with his friends, should be inviting the new kid to bowling and pizza on Friday with them. 

Where’d everyone go?

Biting the bullet, he lets his arm fall back to his side and stands up in one swift motion. He opens his eyes. Everything is as dirty as before. All the windows are curtained. He makes a beeline for the door.

He reaches for the knob, but his hand breezes through the glass handle so effortlessly that if he hadn’t been looking directly at it, he’d figure nothing was there. 

Nodding to himself, he drops his arm and heads to the back door, lips set in a thin line when the handle defies reality so blatantly. 

Without a word or thought, he goes around the house and tries every possible exit he can find, but his attempt at escaping is fruitless. He’s not sure what time it is, not sure what day it is, not sure if he’s really awake at all. If this is a nightmare, it’s the worst mixture of gut wrenching supernatural fear and a reality that hits far too close to home for comfort. 

He curls in on himself at the foot of the couch, mind racing for answers. He feels so unnervingly distant from his own body that he can’t feel his heart beating out of control—can’t feel the stretch of his chest as he inhales. He holds his hands out in front of him and clenches his fingers, claps a few times to make sure he can still feel them. The echo reverberating through the dead air sends his head pounding from the thrum, and he gets on his feet at once to distract himself from the feeling that he’s nothing more than a wave on the frequency. 

He shakes his head and pulls at his hair, lost in thought. The curtains are all drawn tight and for some reason he can’t—he doesn't want to think about it. He can’t go outside, he can’t even see outside… are his neighbors around? Where are his parents? Where are his things? 

Is he alone?

He drowns out his thoughts by humming as loudly as he can. He paces in a continuous circle around the couch, swiping his hand across the back end of it when he passes. Some of the dust sticks to his fingers, and the rest of it floats haphazardly in the air, resettling on the floor only for him to kick it up again with his feet. It all smells outdated, musty, _gross_. He’s confused and scared and angry, but all he can think about now is the dust and how he wants it gone. 

With as much ferocity as his childhood tantrums—which were few and far between, to be fair—he kicks the front cushions of the couch as hard as he can, not satisfied with the cloud of dirt and lint that immediately springs up and hovers about. Channeling his anger, he kicks the same cushion again. He kicks it again and again, and then moves onto the next, and the third. He stands on top of them and kicks the back, and jumps up and down to completely rid them of whatever age they’d seem to have gained. 

He gets back down without feeling winded at all, and grabs the pillow before it can fall to the floor. He slams it onto the ground, and picks it up and slaps it across the armrest without too much thought. He lets it drop to his feet when he’s finished, and for a while he just stands there, eyes closed, acutely aware of the presence of the dust settling around him leisurely. 

With his eyes still closed he pretends nothing is wrong. Maybe nothing really is wrong. Maybe his parents are alright, maybe his friends are, too. And his neighbors, and their dogs. Their cats. He’d always wanted a cat. The old woman across the street used to have an orange tabby. She got it when he was just a little kid, and she let him name it. He named it Lemonade because Orange Juice had sounded like a stupid name for a cat. Lemonade was old now, but she would often sunbathe on her driveway and let him pet her. He wonders offhandedly if he’d ever see her again when a different thought interrupts him. 

He had picked up the pillow. He had been able to grab it.

He whips his focus down to the floor and takes hold of the pillow again, quicker than anything he’d done before. He flips it around in his hands and relishes in the feeling of being able to hold onto something. He feels a little bit more… correct. Real. How he’s supposed to feel.

He smiles a little to himself as he turns it over repeatedly. He takes a seat and looks at it, picks at the frayed corner where he’d obsessively ripped it as a kid. His mom had always gotten mad at him for that. The memory doesn't wipe the grin off his face.

But suddenly and without warning, a tidal wave of exhaustion crashes over him. He feels the urge to yawn, but before he can, he’s asleep.

Spring 1997

It’s been a little while since he’s woken up again. A few hours, at least. He can’t tell.

He’s done nothing but sit on the couch and stare at the empty fireplace, starting to get used to the echo of every noise in the house. The foundation settles almost constantly, and there’s no sound more comforting to him than the rain pelting against the windows all around him. It’s especially dark now, the clouds doing more to keep things in the shadows than usual. Not that there’s anything to be in the shadows, though. He hasn’t tried to look out the windows or open the doors. He knows he can’t.

Instead, he holds the pillow to his chest and hugs it tight. This is the first time he’s really felt a little pang of loneliness. Maybe it isn’t loneliness. Maybe it’s still some sort of pent up anger that doesn’t know how to express itself. 

There’s a quick streak of lightning overhead somewhere, and the sudden dull light it casts over the floorboards startles him. He can momentarily see the outline of the dust around the couch that he’d paced over. There’s a clear path where he’d been furiously walking in circles while the rest of the floor looks as dirty as ever. He clenches his jaw and turns his head away, grateful that lightning doesn’t last forever. 

The crack of thunder that follows is refreshing. It’s loud and jumpy, rattling the windows of the house before it dies off. It sounds close, like the storm is right over him. He glances toward the dark hallway and wishes the shine of the television in his parents’ room would light it up like usual, illuminating their old ugly rug that he always tripped over. He remembers hating it when he would quietly try to get up in the middle of the night. His mom loved it though, something that her mother had given her. She’d never get rid of it.

There’s another strike of lightning, but it doesn’t bother him a bit. He sits and lets the storm creep into every crevice of his mind until his thoughts are all completely drowned in the rain. 

Winter 1997

Later, he doesn’t know by how long, the storm is gone. The house is back to it’s newly usual silent state. 

He gets up to stretch his legs, arms, back, and neck. He tries to pop his knuckles but they won’t have it, which bothers him, but he forgets about it and sets about tracing the house. He starts at the corner of the living room, dragging his index finger between the floorboards and the wall. He crawls through every room like that, just to see if everything connects. Everything does. He traces the empty cabinets and counters in the kitchen, and the ones in the bathroom. He goes into his room and does the same to the four feet of his bed frame. He sits in between them when he’s finished. He pretends his mattress is there. 

It’s strange to sit on the ground that he used to sleep over. He suddenly wonders if his secret box is still under the board he’d made loose when he was in middle school. 

He scoots over to the wall where the headboard used to be and looks for the telltale chip he’d put in the wood to make sure he’d never lose it. To his surprise, it’s still there. 

He can barely fit his pinky finger through the gap, but he’s able to with a great sense of familiarity. A smile starts to light up his face, but when he tries to lift the board up, it’s gone faster than it came. His finger goes right through it, like everything else. He pulls his hand away like he’d not done anything and sets it in his lap instead. He rubs his hands nervously over his thighs and tries to mentally launch himself over the surge of frustration he feels bubbling up. He closes his eyes and stands up, pushing the base of his palms against his eyelids harshly until he can see stars. 

Feeling foreign in his own room, he steps away and doesn’t look back, heading to the comfort of the couch. He takes a seat with his back facing the hallway and brings his pillow up to his chest. He rests his chin against it, and then buries his face into it fully. 

His knuckles go white from the grip he has on it. He has the urge to rip it apart. He wants to pull each and every feather out and burn them in the fireplace, and then the fabric, and then the cushions, and as much of the framework of the couch as he can manage. He wants to go outside, he wants to see his mom, his dad, Nick, Lemonade. Everyone he’s ever known.

“Shut up,” he says, uneasy at the hollow tone he’s taken on. He sounds unnatural, and nothing like himself. Maybe he’ll rip his throat out too, then. He decides he won’t speak again. 

Instead, he screams. He screams so loudly that he shakes the windows more than the thunder managed to. It’s a horrible scream—it sounds more like a whistle of the wind than anything, but he doesn’t stop until he’s sure the whole block can hear it. 

He stands up and starts to pace, starts to pull at his hair before he can think about curbing the habit, and tries to feel any sort of rawness at his throat. It doesn’t feel like anything. He can’t really feel anything.

He picks up his pillow and throws it across the room in frustration. It hits the wall and he storms over to grab it and rip it to shreds. He doesn’t care if he’ll be short a place to lay his head, he couldn’t care less about _anything_. 

He reaches down to pick it up, but to his horror his hand passes through it—as if he’d never been able to hold onto it at all. The sudden halt in his anger slaps him back into the reality of his situation. He can’t necessarily feel his stomach drop, but the sensation comes through like every bit of his being glazes over in ice and his thoughts are slipping. 

“What—?” he whispers, sounding like nothing more than a breeze. He hastily tries to grab the pillow again, but it doesn’t budge, doesn’t give at all where his hand passes through. He feels like the exception to the rule of the order of the universe as he tries once, twice, thrice more to pick it up. 

“I _just_ had you—” he seethes, his hair standing at his neck, “I _just had_ you!” He hurdles back and tries to kick it. It doesn’t seem to notice. His foot zips through and he ends up kicking the wall, but it doesn’t hurt so he kicks it again. 

He stops himself short to calm down, knows already that nothing can help. He stands facing the wall for what feels like days, every so often making an attempt to grab his pillow, and always failing. His aggravation takes longer than he’d like to fizzle out, but it’s eventually replaced with nothing but solemnity. And the crushing feeling that he’s turning into something not himself. 

After an even longer time contemplating his next move, he falls onto the safety of the couch and spends too long wishing he’d never thrown his goddamn pillow. He stares up at the ceiling and tries to map out invisible patterns in the cracks at the corners. They’ve always been there, or so he thinks, he’s just never paid them any mind. 

He flips onto his stomach and faces the floor. He brings his hand down and taps a tune onto the wood, unsure if he can trust himself to do much else. 

Everything is nondescript, there’s no real melody trying to find its way out of his head. He’s tiptoeing on the thin line of sleep, although he doesn’t feel tired in the slightest. His eyelids get too heavy to hold, and as he drops off into a place where no dreams are to be had he can feel the house laughing around him.

There are times when he still thinks he’s dreaming. Something about everything is just so _off_ that a part of him can’t imagine it being real. He constantly walks through the house in a type of trance, like he’s running on a motor more often than not. Time escapes him easily this way, day in and day out, hour to hour, week to week even — maybe more. He can’t tell. 

Sometimes he sits on the couch for so long that he wonders if he’ll eventually get rooted to it. Everything feels distant and just out of reach, like those nightmares where you can’t fully open your eyes, or you can’t walk right, or your balance and equilibrium is just _wrong_. He feels wrong. He feels like something is seriously wrong, and he doesn’t know what, but the thing is that he doesn’t feel _bad_. He just doesn’t feel. He’s like nothing more than a shell of his former self. 

Spring 1998

The worst part is that he has no one to talk to. He has nothing to do either, but he thinks he could continue living like this if he had somebody, _anybody_ to talk to. He doesn’t like to talk to himself because he’s afraid of his own voice. It sounds like it doesn’t belong to him.

Summer 1998

There’s a short time of reprieve when thunderstorms wreak havoc above for days and days on end. He wakes up to the rain more often than not, and each time it’s welcome wholeheartedly. He tries not to think about it, but he wishes the rain would seep in through the crevices of the foundation and fill the house to the brim, swallowing him right up. 

Fall 1998

It takes a while for him to get accustomed to waking up to nothing. For a while the silence kills him—it eats at his brain and threatens to tip over his remaining sanity. He keeps his mind occupied by humming whatever he can come up with. It’s usually the same tune, the farthest thing from upbeat he’s ever heard, but it wastes space and fills the house to its corners with something other than the echoes of birds hopping on and off the roof. 

He gets so used to hearing their tapping that he can pinpoint which room they’re over all from the couch. If he closes his eyes and tries hard enough he can hear the wind outside, and the rustling of leaves, and he thinks maybe it’s fall, or winter. But the house isn’t cold and neither is he, so he knows he must be wrong. 

On one day of nothing in particular, he hums his sullen tune from the kitchen. He’s hopped up onto the old countertop and feels numb as the house vibrates in time with the lifts and falls of his voice. He goes on for what seems like hours like that, trying to fade out of existence, when he hears something he hasn’t heard in a while. He quiets so quickly that the house settles in the sudden absence of sound. He listens carefully, silently, not daring to move until he hears it again. 

It’s the low rumbling of an engine, somewhere off in the distance, probably past his block. 

He springs to his feet and runs to the closest window, pressing his ear as far as he can get it into the curtain, trying to hear better. The engine roars as it goes, getting more distant for a terrifying moment, until it suddenly booms down his street like someone coming to save him. 

It’s fast-moving, but he’s always on his toes, and he yells at the top of his lungs as he runs to the front door, the shrill sound rattling the shutters outside and causing the birds on the roof to scatter. The house quakes obnoxiously as the engine rumbles on, but at no point does he hear it slow, and at no point does it turn around and come back.

As fast as it had come it goes off somewhere into the hidden horizon, taking with it nothing more than it had already had. 

For a long time after that the house settles uneasily in the rhythm he imagines would mimic the rush of his heart in his chest if he could feel it.

Spring 1999

He lays on the couch for so many waking days that when he finally decides to get up, his silhouette is outlined in dust. 

He doesn’t bother with it. He does a perimeter check of the house, knowing that nothing will have changed since he last did so. It’s quiet outside, not a nighttime kind of quiet, but a type of creature-less silence that only comes before a storm. 

There used to be a window seat bed in his parents’ room, and while the mattress is gone, the ledge is still there and plenty big for him to sit on comfortably. He leans his back against the covered glass and waits for the rain to come and give him some peace of mind.

Summer 1999

The worst thing to happen to him is the visitors—the sudden criminals, the breakers-and-enterers.

There have been a few people that have picked the front lock and tiptoed into his life unannounced, but none have noticed him. He tried at first to get their attention, but their eagerness to ignore him wasn’t out of rudeness, rather from the simple fact that they could not _see_ him.

The first time, he tried to speak. The couple kept on with their own conversation and sat all over his living room. He tried to run out the open front door, but some force knocked him back, and he was unable to get even a centimeter away from the weatherstrip. He rounded up on the couple and thought to kill them when they spoke the words _ghost boy_ , but instead he screamed and learned that they could _hear_ him.

At the first shake of the shutters they bolted, as did all the others that came after them. Their words fueled an anger in him he didn’t know he was capable of, and the only thing that kept him level-headed in his solitude was his ever-increasing awareness that he couldn’t remember what anyone he had once known looked like.

Fall 1999

_Ghost boy_.

He knows it's around Halloween. Teenagers in all their forms are showing up to his house in search of the _ghost boy_. The one they’d all suddenly heard about and were all interested in finding.

He would never admit anything to himself; there’s nothing to say. He ignores what he can’t explain and allows his frustrations to scare off his unwanted guests. 

He’s a fad, something people were curious about. He knows what they want, but all he ever does is scare them away before he crawls back to the safety of the solitary confinement that is whatever is his body and soul. 

As soon as they stop caring about him, he thinks, he might accept it. He knows that in another wave of prolonged silence he could come to terms with things. 

He just needs that opportunity.

January 1, 2000

There is nothing more physically exhausting than the thought of time.

During his peak in popularity, three boys stride into his house and answer all his fears over the course of no more than half an hour: one is wearing sunglasses fashioned to spell out the year 2000. 

He last remembers reading the paper in 1983. 

1983.

1983 19 _83 1983 nineteen eighty-three NINETEEN EIGHTY-THREE_. 

The number hits him like a freight train, and if he could feel his chest he knows it’d constrict his phantom lungs until the only thing left in him would be the memory of 1983.

1983, he was 19 years old. He was 19 in 1983, he was born in 1964. He had a friend named Nick who he was going to the arcade with. They never did make it to the arcade that one time in 1983, their plans were unfinished. What happened? _What happened?_

He’d had a phone on his bedside. He looks over there now, ignores where the boys are sprawled over his couch, and heads to his room. He remembers what his room looked like, he remembers his nightstand and his lamp and his phone—it had been beige with a curly cord that got tangled in his papers when he would call Nick and work on assignments with him. They’d gone to school together, no, more than that—they had grown up together. Nick had been his first friend. 

How could he miss going to the arcade with him? They had talked on the phone, yes, Nick was going to meet him in the morning and they were going to spend the day in town. 

In town. He lives in Florida. It’s always raining, of course it is! He doesn’t live far from the ocean, neither does Nick. 

_Did_ Nick.

Where is Nick? 

_What happened?_

His heart is racing, he _knows_ it is. He can’t feel it, but he can sense it in the way his thoughts zip back and forth like headlights breaking through curtains of rain, becoming clearer as the night grows calmer and the clouds move on to other places, to other headlights to hide. He clings onto these strobe-bright memories and paints them on the inner canvases of his mind, creating an internal mausoleum to honor their existence.

In his fit of clarity, the 2000 boy walks right up to him and investigates his bed frame. The boy doesn’t know how close he is to touching him, how easy it’d be to rip through the transparent air that makes up what’s left of him and never know he’d done it. If only he could reach out and touch the boy, if only he could thank him for reminding him… 

But he walks away. He stands idle in the doorway for a few moments, and turns back to face him. He’s curious—something about him seems open, like he’s on some more attainable frequency. 

He raises his hand and holds up a little triangle with a hole cut out in the middle. He’s pointing it directly at him, and then the most peculiar thing happens.

He screams.

The house doesn’t shake, the shutters don’t rattle, but this boy and his friends are up and out in no more than a two-sentence, rapid conversation. 

He follows them curiously, anxiously wondering what they’re running from. He hadn’t done anything to scare them—there was no reason to be afraid.

It doesn’t surprise him that the one time he’s willing to welcome people into his home it backfires gloriously. They slam the door, and he feels the house laughing as it settles.

Again, all too soon, he finds himself alone. He’s fuller this time, he supposes. He remembers things.

He goes to his couch, deep in reflection, and picks up the Walkman that they left behind in their panic. He can feel a smile start to form as he realizes it’s stable enough for him to hold. He knows he used to share music with Nick all the time, and although this Walkman is newer than his was by many years, all he has to do is press play. 

As the first song starts to play, completely foreign to him, he pales at the fact that he can’t remember his own name.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
